


Shuffle and Cut

by FrenchTwistResistance



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:35:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25523719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrenchTwistResistance/pseuds/FrenchTwistResistance
Summary: Little bit of noir detective nonsense about how  estranged late 1940s Zelda and Hilda uncover the truth of Ambrose’s identity.
Relationships: Hilda Spellman/Zelda Spellman
Comments: 50
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lalalyds2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalyds2/gifts).



“You’re not an easy woman to track down,” Zelda says as she ambles onto a stool and lights a cigarette. She wears her hair like Veronica Lake these days—more blonde now than strawberry in her usual natural strawberry blonde—long and curled and peek-a-boo over a naked shoulder. Her gown is a gold satin halter neck, and the view of freckles on her chest is generous. She flops her black, beaded clutch onto the green of the table and rests her free hand next to it, drumming her fingers on the felt.

“I’m not an easy woman in general,” Hilda says as she effortlessly shuffles two decks of cards. She wears her hair more like Betty Grable—very practical and very artificially blonde rather than her natural blonde. She’s all buttoned up and professional in her uniform of starched white full-sleeve blouse and black vest and black hot pants and black nylons and black t-strap pumps. The casino requires a certain standard, after all. She says, “If you’re not betting, you need to find someplace else to be.”

“What makes you so sure I’m not betting?” Zelda says.

Hilda’s eyes flick up, land squarely on Zelda’s eyes. Hilda says,

“Chips don’t lie.”

Zelda rolls her eyes, and then she snaps open her clutch, retrieves a handful of chips, scatters them haphazardly in front of her. She says,

“I’m a lot of things, darling, but a liar isn’t one of them.”

Hilda looks at the mess of chips, scans the rest of the table, which is mercifully absent of people except for one old drunk man swaying on his stool, his bleary eyes fixed on the very attractive roulette croupier a table over. Hilda hisses,

“Perhaps you don’t recall, but I’ve been cut off from all Spellman resources. This is my livelihood.”

Zelda stacks her chips meticulously and clicks her tongue noncommittally, says,

“Oh, I do recall.” 

They look at each other for a beat, and then Hilda whispers,

“Family members are not supposed to be here. I could lose my job. ”

Zelda straightens her chips very precisely. She doesn’t look at Hilda at all as she says,

“‘Spellman’ is a common enough surname, that is if anyone were to ask and if you were still using it, which nobody will and you aren’t.” She looks up at Hilda briefly just to smirk at her and then returns her gaze to her chips. “We don’t especially look alike. And you’d never rig a game in my favor—both because you would never rig a game on principle and because you hate me.” Zelda pauses, and Hilda flinches. “So. No one would suspect. You can cool your jets.” 

Hilda splits the two decks she’s been manipulating, sets a pile of cards aside, adds another deck, shuffles some more, says,

“But I can’t exactly cool my jets, can I? As much as all you’ve said is true, there’s a reason you’ve come here.”

Zelda runs her finger along the circumference of  
a hundred dollar chip and is focusing on it as she says,

“You’re not an easy woman to track down. But I’ve tracked you down. Surely that must mean something to you.”

Hilda’s about to respond, but a portly man in a double breasted navy suit with his arm around the waist of a tall, thin brunette in a red sheath slump onto a pair of stools at the other side of the blackjack table. He slurs,

“You’re Hilda, right? You’re the gal to go to to get lucky, right?”

Zelda raises her eyebrows in question, suspicious and knowing and sarcastic, and Hilda dismisses her with her narrowed eyes. Then Hilda turns to the man with a bright, fake smile, says flirtatiously,

“I can’t guarantee a jackpot, but I can guarantee a good time even if you do end up losing your shirt.”

He guffaws and squeezes the brunette, who winces but covers pretty well. He turns his head over his shoulder and motions with his free hand.

Three more men arrive at his insistence, and now the table is full.

xxx

Two hours later, Hilda’s off shift.

On a regular day in her regular life, she would be eating a greasy breakfast at an all-night diner and then going home to water her plants in the cool of the just-pre-dawn morning, and then going to bed.

But tonight—or this morning; 4am is ambiguous that way—she’s leaning against her old ‘20s Studebaker rag top, staring up at Zelda, who somehow retains her haughty detachment even as she exists in this foreign-to-her space, even as her aesthetic choices make her look as though she’s on display and ought to be devoured, especially in the ambient glow of neon lights and the liquid shadows in this particular asphalt lot.

Zelda stands straight-backed and superior a few feet in front of Hilda, lights a cigarette with a bejeweled butane lighter, says,

“I know you don’t trust me. I prepared myself for that. But as much as you don’t trust me, I trust you.”

Hilda runs her fingers along the door handle, thinks, says,

“Sure, ok. If I were to believe that, what might I expect you to expect me to do about it?”

Zelda scoffs. But then she says,

“I need your help.”

Now Hilda scoffs and says archly,

“Oh? You need a good strawberry-rhubarb pie recipe? Tips on growing tomatoes?”

Zelda’s eyes flash, and she takes a step forward. She says,

“You like to pretend that sort of thing is your only contribution.” She takes another step forward, and she takes a drag of her cigarette, pointedly exhaling the smoke away from Hilda’s face. She places her hands either side of Hilda’s shoulders on the Studebaker behind her, continues, “Are you ready to quit dicking me around and listen to me? Because there’s more at stake just now than our petty grievances.”

“And what might that ‘more at stake’ be?” Hilda says. She’s trapped here, so she might as well ask.

Zelda laughs but doesn’t relinquish her hold. She says,

“You really don’t know what’s been happening at home. Cute. But also pathetic.” She shakes her head. And then, “Pop quiz, sister. Who is the current High Priest of The Church of Night?”

Hilda swallows, says,

“Edward.”

Zelda’s body cants toward Hilda’s body. Zelda says,

“Correct. And who is his ward?”

“Ward?” Hilda says.

Zelda laughs, and the action brings her body closer to Hilda’s body. They’re just barely touching, satin brushing wool and cotton, the radiating heat of the skin beneath both. Zelda says,

“Edward has a ward, and I need your help to figure him out, check out his story.”

Hilda stiffens. She says,

“You only need my help when you’re out of other options.”

“Maybe,” Zelda says. She presses closer, and Hilda can feel the sizzle of her magic, the weight of her. “But maybe when I’m out of other options I’m forced to remember who’s reliable.” Hilda sucks in a breath, flattens herself against the metal behind her, waits. Zelda continues, “I’m forced to remember who’s always come through for me before, regardless of personal squabbles.”

Hilda’s trapped. She’s trapped physically but also by her familial obligation. If she squirms out, Zelda will grab her. If she teleports out, Zelda will track her. If she talks herself out, Zelda will talk her back in. 

And if she succeeds in any wiggling out, she’s a traitor. She’s the one who’s abandoned the entire family. She’s responsible not only for her own exclusion but also for the disintegration of the entire family. 

Hilda’s a professional blackjack dealer. She knows the odds. She’s witnessed otherwise reasonable people hit at nineteen or stay at twelve. When there are so many decks in play and a person can’t count the cards a person gets reckless.

And whatever Zelda’s presenting her right now is just like that, so many decks, no discernible mathematical strategy.

Hilda straightens her spine against her car door, says,

“You’re so sure I’m your big ticket. I don’t even know anything about this alleged ward. So the burden of proof is on you, babe.”

Zelda looks down at her, breathes down on her, says,

“Satan, you are just such a stubborn asshole. But the perfect stubborn asshole I need to discern what’s what.”

Hilda looks up into Zelda’s blazing eyes and thinks Zelda might kiss her or kill her, and she’s not sure which she might prefer. 

“I don’t have paid time off,” Hilda says. “So we either work around my schedule, or you front the costs.”

Zelda braces on one elbow, traces her other hand over one of Hilda’s errant curls to resecure it behind an ear, says,

“When have you ever known me not to front the costs when it comes to me and you?” There’s an electricity in the air between them with their magic bouncing off each other. Hilda says,

“I’d like to invoke my fifth amendment rights.” 

Zelda steps back a pace and takes a drag on her neglected cigarette, says,

“If that’s how you want to play it, that’s how we'll play it. That is, if you’re saying yes to this… investigation.” Hilda blinks, swallows, says,

“Sure. We find out whatever it is you want to find out, and then we’re done.”

“Sure,” Zelda says. She flicks her cigarette to the asphalt, crushes it with her shoe. She then looks at Hilda. Really looks at her, eye to eye. She says, “Sure. If that’s what you want.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I have know the term “hot pants” for short shorts came about later than this story is set, but it’s such a silly granny phrase with such great imagery and connotation that I used it anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

Hilda wakes at her usual 2pm. She sorts her mail. She chit chats with her neighbors. She executes her calisthenics. She showers. She dresses.

It’s all her usual routine. Except. Except she fears any moment Zelda will appear again.

They hadn’t set any firm plan. They’d merely tentatively agreed to something nebulous and Zelda had disappeared, leaving Hilda to do what she always did. Always as in the last nine months or so. Before that it had been driving cattle in Wyoming and before that taxi dancing in Ohio and before that hocking lobster in Maine and before that driving an ambulance in London. When the Spellmans had decided to disinherit her, she’d done whatever appealed to her at the time to make money and entertain herself. And currently it’s the casino.

She’s got a cute bungalow and a dog in the backyard and a solid routine and no debt.

It’s not perfect, but it’s the closest she will allow herself. Because her idea of perfect is a little too idealistic and romantic than even she can contend with. She hardly lets herself think about what that might entail because it always involves Zelda, and more disconcertingly, Zelda being nice. She hasn’t seen that since she was a child and maybe some brief glimpses after, and she knows the concept exists only in memory or perhaps more accurately, fantasy. Either way, not something to dwell on. Either way, not something to count on. Either way, not something to build a life on.

Hilda parks her old Studebaker in her usual spot and strides up to the employee entrance.

But the burly security man won’t let her in.

“I work here,” Hilda says. “You know me.”

He shakes his head—she thinks it might be almost contrite—says,

“I just do as I’m told. And I’m told you don’t work here and I don’t know you.” 

xxx

Hilda’s sitting in her regular booth at the diner but several hours prior to when she normally would be there. Her usual waitress, just on shift, brings her regular order and talks to her just the same, but Hilda sees the suspicion in her eyes, the confusion. She herself feels weird, too. The light slanting in the windows is wrong. Her waitress is put together and attractive rather than haphazard and haggard at dawn after eight hours on her feet in humid deep-fryer air. The clientele is different and sober. Enough of the same old to be comforting but enough different to be discombobulating.

Hilda’s rolled her starched white shirtsleeves to her elbow in a futile attempt to escape the dusk heat. The casino is air conditioned, but not many other places are, and she’s sweating buckets already, unused to being awake and active without the artificial buffer. So she’s smoking a cigarette to take her mind off everything. Of all Zelda’s vices that she’d tried to initiate her into, this is the only one she intermittently indulges in to calm her nerves. But of course, because she associates nicotine with Zelda, the effect isn’t as numbing as it ought to be.

It’s just a matter of time, she thinks. Just a matter of time before she’s dragged into something whether she wants to be or not.

Hilda’s crushing out her cigarette in the ashtray and poking at her too-eggy french toast as Zelda slides in across from her. Just a matter of time.

Zelda’s in another gorgeous evening gown, crepe and emerald green this time, a Queen Anne neckline. She tosses that same black beaded clutch from the previous night toward the sugar dispenser unthinkingly, places her hands on the table top, spreads her fingers. She opens her mouth to say something, but Hilda beats her to the punch:

“So. As could be bet on. Your fronting the costs got me fired, then?” 

Hilda’s looking intently at Zelda, but Zelda’s eyes are on her own hands on the table.

Zelda scoffs. She looks up and straight into Hilda then, says,

“Can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. That’s a mortal saying you like, right?”

Hilda grabs one of Zelda’s wrists. Hilda presses her fingers in bruisingly. They stare at each other in an unblinking moment.

“I like a lot of things,” Hilda says. “I also don’t like a lot of things.” 

Zelda’s face shows she registers the pain of Hilda’s nails—a brief flash of engorged pupils and tight lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth—but then she says,

“I couldn’t take any chances. I had to have you to myself. I had to have your full attention.”

Hilda laughs bitterly, says,

“Just like old times.”

Hilda’s fingers are still digging into Zelda’s wrist, and Zelda is still showing her cards. Zelda says,

“Just like and unlike old times. Look. Try to see things from my perspective. I wasn’t the one who cut you off. I’m as much a pawn as you are, and you’d understand that if you could look beyond your own misery for a half a second.”

Hilda releases Zelda’s wrist, clasps her hands in her lap. It’s an old idea of decorum instilled by their mother, a muscle memory. But it’s also this current admonishment. Perhaps she has been too ensconced in her own misery to consider anybody else’s. Zelda, arbitrarily designated good daughter, has had her own burdens to bear and her own shackles to negotiate. There’s a certain freedom in being the black sheep. There’s a certain rigidity to being the one who fulfills duties. She’s known this for a long time, but it’s all so palpable just now, fingertips pressing against a bruise.

“I’m listening,” Hilda says.

“This isn’t easy for me, you know,” Zelda says. Her tone and focus shifts. “It’s an intrusion. There’s suddenly this other person. And no one will tell me the truth about it. The most I can get is that he’s our nephew and we must look after him. Sure, Gerald had his wild years before he died of smallpox. But there’s got to be more to it than that.”

Hilda chews on this for a moment, says,

“So?”

Zelda snags a square of Hilda’s french toast, chews it and licks her syrupy fingers as she stares at her. Finally, Zelda says,

“So. You’ve got the free time.”

Hilda sighs, says,

“I’ve got the free time because you’ve orchestrated it that way. But what’s in it for me?”

Zelda shakes a cigarette free from the silver case she’s dug out from the black beaded clutch, lights it, says,

“The Hilda I used to know wouldn’t ask such a question.”

“The Hilda you used to know was a sap.”


	3. Chapter 3

Hilda wakes up sweaty, tangled in scratchy, unfamiliar sheets. Her head is throbbing behind and just above her left eye. It’s dark outside, and there’s a muted glow from a lamp somewhere inside, wherever inside might be. She’s disoriented and unsure of her surroundings, by muscle memory starts to reach right to open her nightstand drawer and grope around for her .38 Special, but mid-stretch she remembers how useless that would be. Oh. Right. She’s not at home. She’s hungover in a cheap motor lodge on the outskirts of Phoenix.

She sits up a little too abruptly for her hangover to adequately handle, and the sheet she’s using to cover her nude torso drops as she presses her index and middle fingers of either hand to their corresponding temples to try to quell the nausea, pain, and dizziness. It doesn’t help.

The lamp light is coming from the rickety particleboard desk where Zelda’s sorting through a few different stacks of papers as she smokes a cigarette and takes notes on the complimentary pad, a map spread over her thighs. She’s in a beige silk nightgown that’s much too classy for the location and situation.

Zelda looks up, scans Hilda’s body slowly with a raised eyebrow. That doesn’t help, either. Nausea, pain, dizziness, and now on top of all that a flush of arousal. Hilda dismisses that utter stupidity, says,

“Satan, what time is it?” 

“Figured we might get an early start,” Zelda says. Her eyes flick over Hilda once more and then return to the desk.

Zelda has not actually answered the question, and Hilda hadn’t really expected her to. She suspects Zelda doesn’t precisely know the answer. What she knows full well is that Zelda is more accustomed to bourbon than she is. She suspects Zelda has used this mutual knowledge to her advantage in order to chemically adjust Hilda's sleep cycle so she’ll be more prepared to do things at normal-people times and maybe to get her to pass out so Zelda could have a little time to herself to collate a portfolio, prepare for the day. Zelda’s strategic that way, and Hilda doesn’t begrudge her. And that’s the crux of the problem, Hilda thinks as she stumbles toward the bathroom. Whatever Zelda does, Hilda can see a reason for it and can’t bring herself to begrudge her for it.

She tries not to gag as she brushes her teeth, tries not to moan as she showers and the unusually high water pressure for a shitty motel spigot hits her back ribs in all the right spots.

When she emerges fully dressed in blue and yellow plaid cotton pleated trousers and a short sleeve Peter Pan collar yellow cotton blouse, just a little blue eyeshadow and dusty rose lipstick and a swipe of mascara, Zelda’s in much the same position as she’d left her except now in a severe gray skirt suit and full make up. 

No use in attempting conversation. Zelda will say whatever Zelda will say in her own time and veiled in her own Zelda ways.

Hilda packs her traveling case, casting frequent but quick glances toward Zelda, wondering when and how and about what she will eventually be briefed. Wondering some other things besides. She’d asked what was in it for her even as she knew the answer was feeling needed. She hadn’t asked what was in it for Zelda. Information, certainly. A sense of control over her home, certainly. But there’s something there in the tenseness of her shoulders. There’s something there in the hard set of her jaw. Zelda’s missing something, and Hilda wants to find it for her. Zelda appears to be missing something, but it might be a manipulative ruse to draw Hilda in and hurt her for fun and/or profit.

Zelda isn’t the golden child but perhaps the silver. And silver tarnishes, necessitates polishing. Is that what this is somehow? A scheme to exert power? Hilda’s been strung along in a lot of ways by a lot of people. Her harrowing at The Academy, mostly spearheaded by Zelda, looms in the recesses of her brain.

As Hilda’s clicking the clasps closed on her suitcase, Zelda’s saying,

“I think it’d be best if you gave me a few minutes alone with her first.”

“You ask the hard questions and then I’m the soft touch?” Hilda says.

Zelda looks at her. It’s the first time they’ve made eye contact all morning. But it’s brief before Zelda looks her up and down, clicks her tongue, says,

“Something like that.”

xxx

It’s a well-kept trailer court. Hilda’s got the ragtop folded down, and Zelda has approached the chrome Sportsman with the obviously meticulously tended flower bed out front.

Hilda had watched the door open and Zelda evaporate into the interior, and then she’d turned off the Studebaker’s ignition and laid her head back, waiting. She didn’t exactly know what she’d been waiting for but knew she would know it when she felt it. Her special empathy bullshit was like that sometimes.

It’s not exactly a distress call or sos signal. But it’s something uncomfortably similar, and she finds herself piecing her way up the brick walk and rapping on the tin door.

And then she’s sitting on a conspicuously plush floral divan, sipping at a sweet tea that’s been pressed into her hand.

Zelda’s at the other end of the divan, and a skinny overly tan leathery woman with a cigarette dangling from her lip is across from them chopping carrots directly into a crockpot. The skinny woman is saying,

“Yeah I knew Gerald. But I never really knew Gerald. You know?”

She turns slightly, just half her face looking at them.

“I never had a kid by him.” She chuckles, chops, continues, “I was never really his old lady. Just his good-time gal. If you’re looking for who I think you’re looking for, last time I knew anything about her she was in Las Cruces.”

Zelda’s fingernails are digging into the cushions. Hilda says,

“Thanks. You think you could give us a list of Gerald’s old ladies? And maybe even his good-time gals?”

“Men like to keep their secrets. But I can give you what I know or suspect,” the skinny woman says.


	4. Chapter 4

Now that Hilda’s got a little greasy food in her and the sun’s all the way up and burning out the rest of the liquor, she can think a little more clearly. Zelda’s driving, and she’s ditched the blazer, unbuttoned her collar, and Hilda’s playing a little game with herself that involves how uncomfortably she will allow herself to sit in order to get a glimpse of Zelda’s sun-pinkened chest. It’s not a particularly fun game. Not a lot of reward for the risk. Of course not a lot of risk either, just a crick in the neck. She’s long past being shamed about getting caught staring. The whole exercise is a lot more fun than the conversation she’s going to have to start sooner rather than later. She repositions herself and puts on her sunglasses, finally just bites the bullet:

“Zelds. I’m not claiming to be Sam Spade, and I don’t know your whole plan or thought process here, but are you sure it’s worth the time and effort to schlep around the Southwest interrogating ancient bimbos about our brother who has been dead for twenty years? I mean surely we could just ask this kid what his deal is. Maybe track down some school records.”

She’s not watching Zelda’s movements, but she feels the car shift into a higher gear. She feels Zelda shift into a higher gear. Zelda says,

“What an interesting thought. One I hadn’t considered before.”

There’s no higher gear for the car to shift into, but the motor is straining faster and faster. Hilda closes her eyes, imagines her tachometer’s feeble little arm flailing and jerking its way into the red. She’s made a tactical error. She should’ve been smarter. Zelda continues, all ice:

“To think I came all the way out here without having already done just that and gotten nowhere. To think I could’ve just stayed home and taken out a personal ad inviting an attractive stranger to keep me company on myriad fool’s errands and think she’s being discreet ogling my tits as we drive around getting sunburned into oblivion. To think I could have managed this situation so efficiently and swiftly and tidily without having to resort to groveling at my estranged sister and only-woman-I’ve-ever-loved-who-nevertheless-hates-me-for-things-I-didn’t-do’s feet hoping she’ll put aside her own feelings for a moment to consider what it means for the whole family that a previously unknown alleged relation has been forcefully imposed on us with a lot of secrecy and whispered rumors about The Council and The Vatican.”

The car careens ever faster on the straight, deserted desert blacktop, and Hilda’s indignant rather than chastised. She says,

“What a pretty martyr you make. Did you rehearse that speech at your vanity mirror?”

Hilda feels the stutter as Zelda punches the gas even more aggressively, but the Studebaker is already at top speed. Hilda laughs, says,

“I haven’t been this deep in horseshit since I spent a summer as contract labor at a rodeo in South Dakota. You should’ve led with The Council or The Vatican. You’d’ve at least piqued my interest that way. I’m the only woman you’ve ever loved? I highly doubt that’s an emotion you have access to.”

Zelda slams the brakes, skids to a halt halfway in the culvert.

Zelda turns to face her, eyes blazing. Zelda says,

“You’re supposed to be an empath. But really, you’re just an asshole. I don’t know if it’s because you hold yourself to some moral standard or because you’ve decided I’m not interesting enough to probe. But you always read me wrong.”

Hilda lets her empath bullshit feelings wash over her and doesn’t detect any Zelda at all. That’s a tell in itself. She says,

“You want to be read a certain way. And your will is stronger than my ability.”

Zelda looks at her. Zelda’s sunburned and haggard. Zelda says,

“What a convenient lie. Get fucked, Hildegard.”

Zelda swipes at her sweaty brow. Hilda says,

“Let me assure you, I’ve gotten fucked plenty. Literally and figuratively and the hazy in between. But that’s neither here nor there and not what you’re interested in besides. If you don’t want me to continue to read you wrong, you’re going to have to come clean.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Come clean? How much cleaner would you prefer me? Would you have me drink bleach? If that’s what it takes, I’ll do it,” Zelda says.

Hilda rolls her eyes.

“As if your experienced liver would even register that as a toxin of note.”

Zelda slams a hand down onto the bench seat between them, says,

“I’m trying here! And you flat refuse to acknowledge my effort!” Hilda laughs,

“If you can provide concrete evidence of my ever having refused you, I’ll eat my hat.”

They stare at each other a second, and then Zelda clenches her teeth, slaps the vinyl again and then turns away.

And there’s the water works.

As far as Hilda knows, Zelda doesn’t really cry. Her eyes get wild and wet and she throws things or turns her face away from scrutiny and takes a breath. In intimate, unguarded moments, she lets slide three tears maximum before she pulls back her shoulders and makes a statement of some kind. When Hilda emerges from the Cain pit and Zelda’s sitting on the cold earth next to it, Zelda’s mascara is smeared and streaking down her cheeks in jagged rivulets, but whatever tears might or might not have made those rivulets have long dried. So maybe Zelda does cry. But Hilda’s never really witnessed it.

She’s heard rumors that Zelda cries. And what she’s looking at now appears to align with those rumors rather than any experience she’s had with her sister: in those rumors, it’s artifice and manipulation. It’s how after having been initially cast as First Gravedigger in Hamlet her first year at the Academy she had convinced the drama teacher to give her the part of Laertes instead, allegedly. It’s how she had escaped not one but two different engagements to warlocks she didn’t fancy, allegedly. It’s how she had cajoled their parents into allowing Hilda to study piano with a very gifted mortal tutor, allegedly.

So whatever this is, she’s suspicious of it. Zelda’s hunched over the steering wheel, her face buried in a forearm, her other hand clenching her skirt. Zelda’s not sobbing and heaving with gulped breaths. That would be too dramatic to be believable. She’s just quietly falling apart. And Hilda’s watching with a discerning eye.

Hilda rummages around in her glove box and retrieves the monogrammed cotton handkerchief she keeps there. She touches Zelda’s wrist that’s clenching her skirt and presses the handkerchief into her palm. She watches Zelda’s back as Zelda takes in a deep breath, and then she straightens up, wipes her eyes and her nose with the handkerchief. She then folds it over and wipes the sweat from her forehead and then neck. When she finally turns to look at Hilda, she is composed. The mask she wears for other people firmly in place. She says,

“I think I’m a bit overheated. Would you mind driving?”

Hilda doesn’t reply verbally. She merely opens her door and slides out. They switch spots, and Zelda drapes the handkerchief over her face and reclines as much as she is able. Hilda turns the ignition and then shifts as quickly as the vehicle will allow. She turns up the radio and doesn’t look at her sister.

xxx

Hilda pulls into the parking lot of the first restaurant she sees in Las Cruces.

Zelda’s drunk two glasses of water, a glass and a half of lemonade, has smoked two cigarettes.

Hilda’s drunk one glass of water and a half a cup of coffee and watched avidly as Zelda’s smoked.

They’re waiting for their food orders to arrive, but they’re also waiting for the other to speak.

Finally Zelda does:

“I don’t have your empath abilities. But I can usually tell when something’s not kosher. And whatever Edward’s brought into our home is a fucking shellfish meatloaf garnished with crushed pork rinds and served on a mixed-fabric platter.”

“Just because this kid unnerves you doesn’t mean he’s bad news,” Hilda says.

“That’s the problem, babe. The kid doesn’t unnerve me. He’s regular. He’s copacetic. He’s exactly the kind of dick you’d expect a kid to be. But Edward doesn’t treat him that way. Edward might as well have a Geiger counter in his hot little hands any time he approaches Ambrose.”

Their waitress hovers over them suddenly, chewing gum popping erratically.

They’re draped across the table talking to each other and both retreat at the waitress’s appearance. The waitress sets down scrambled eggs and hashbrowns and cottage cheese in front of Hilda and a pork chop and vegetable soup in front of Zelda, promises drink refills, exits.

“Well? Is the kid radioactive?” Hilda says as she douses hot sauce onto her eggs and hashbrowns.

“Not that I can see. No tumors or deterioration or glowing,” Zelda says as she’s blowing on a spoonful of soup.

“Hmm,” Hilda says. “It’s been my experience that when a person is treated as dangerous even though he or she is not actually dangerous, that person becomes dangerous as a defense mechanism or self-fulfilling prophecy or dramatic irony or whatever.”

“That’s more or less exactly my concern,” Zelda says.

They look at each other.

“Is it now?” Hilda says.

“Yes,” Zelda says firmly. “Yes, that’s always been one of my main concerns.”

Hilda scoffs and tucks into her eggs.

“Hildegard. Look at me,” Zelda says. Her voice is low and clear. Hilda raises her eyes, says,

“What now?” Zelda stares into her, says,

“I almost convinced myself I could live without you. But I can’t. I had been getting along just fine, but then. This kid. He’s so much like you. That’s why I’ve got to know. That’s why I need your help. I need you.”

Hilda swallows the bite of egg in her mouth. The hot sauce burns her throat. She wants to believe what Zelda’s saying, but she’s not sure she can. She’s not sure it’s safe to do so. She’d built a safe life and now she’s abandoned that safe life to chase phantoms. She’s got to figure out how committed she is to either.

“Maybe you do, or maybe I’m an easy patch to the hole in your life,” Hilda says as she flings the napkin that had been on her lap onto the tabletop.

Hilda’s in the bathroom, splashes cool water on her face, looks at her face in the mirror above the sink. She can hardly stand to look at the wan, tired, surly reflection staring back at her.

The door bangs open and then closed, and the lock clicks. And Zelda’s face is in the mirror over her shoulder. Just as wan, tired, and surly. But also something else. Hilda turns and looks at Zelda head on, tries to analyze that something else.

But Zelda doesn’t allow much analysis, heaves Hilda onto the counter, clinks teeth against teeth as her tongue enters her mouth.

It’s a dark, deep kiss, Zelda’s tongue invading and insistent with Hilda’s hands flying instinctively to Zelda’s hair. Hilda’s keening into Zelda’s mouth, and Zelda’s fumbling with Hilda’s belt buckle and then pushing her trousers down, scratching her nails up the outsides of her thighs. Hilda removes one hand from Zelda’s hair and grips Zelda’s wrist, guides it between her legs. And they’re still kissing, open yearning mouth to open yearning mouth.

But Hilda suddenly pauses—pauses kissing her, drops her wrist and places that hand on Zelda’s shoulder instead although the hand in her hair remains. Hilda says shakily,

“Is this what you meant when you said you needed me?”

Zelda pushes her body closer, encircles Hilda’s waist with her arm that isn’t between Hilda’s legs, looks in her eyes. Hilda can’t read that look. There are too many pheromones obstructing her empathy bullshit. Zelda says,

“Yes. And no. But I’ll take what I can get.” She inches her hand up from where it had been dropped mid-inner thigh, raises an eyebrow. Hilda considers this tacit question a half second, and then she kisses Zelda again, slow and deep, and Zelda pushes aside Hilda’s underwear and slides one finger very slowly over her clit and then down through her wetness. They both gasp.

This is not how Hilda had expected a reunion to play out. And it’s probably not particularly productive. It’s probably just Zelda’s way of convincing her and controlling her. Even so, she’s not immune. Zelda’s always been her weak spot.

“I want you inside me immediately,” Hilda whispers, and Zelda complies. 

She pushes two fingers in fast and hard, making sure the heel of her hand connects. Hilda gasps again and begins bucking her hips. She pulls Zelda closer to her by her hold on her hair, sinks her nails into Zelda’s shoulder, is no longer kissing her slowly but fervently, hungrily. Zelda adds another finger, quickens her pace. 

Zelda is half on the sink now, too, bracing herself with a knee on the counter for leverage, thrusting harder and faster and deeper. Hilda starts to clench around her fingers, and Zelda grounds the heel of her hand more purposefully against her each time she pounds into her, and she pulls her even closer with the arm around the back of her torso, and their bodies bound into each other, and they are kissing maddeningly, and Hilda comes, throwing her head back and panting something between a groan and a stifled scream as she shudders and squeezes her legs bruisingly around Zelda’s waist. Zelda continues thrusting deep but slowly now and kisses her neck. When Hilda has stopped pulsating and jerking around her fingers she slides them out and gently caresses her vulva up to her clit, back down to her opening with firm, languid strokes and mirrors this with her tongue at Hilda’s throat. Hilda’s legs loosen their hold and both hands are back in Zelda’s hair, pulling her head up so their mouths meet again, and as they kiss, Zelda focuses on stroking over her clit in tight quick circles, but Hilda tugs at her hair sharply, whispers,

“We can’t spend all afternoon in the washroom.” But her hips are grinding against Zelda’s hand, and she’s grunting little eager grunts and kissing Zelda’s mouth and jaw and neck erratically in between. She comes again, again tightening her legs around Zelda, but this time she shouts. Just one strangled, “Oh!” and Zelda gentles her touch, rubbing soft circles and sucking lightly on Hilda’s collarbone. When Hilda’s heartbeat starts to slow down, she stops rubbing altogether and scoots her panties back into place, smoothes over them, twice, the length of her vulva, and then retracts her hand, braces it on the counter. They stay in their embrace for another moment, breathing at each other, and then Hilda removes her hands from Zelda’s hair and props herself back on her elbows, still panting and staring at Zelda. Zelda steps back and starts washing her hands. 

Hilda carefully lowers herself to the floor and stands behind Zelda. She pushes Zelda’s skirt all the way up to her waist and snakes her hand under the hem of her underwear, grips her cheek, scrapes her nails over it. They’re staring at each other in the mirror, and Zelda turns off the water, says,

“We can’t spend all afternoon in the washroom.”

“We can spend another five minutes,” Hilda says as she uses her other hand to brush aside Zelda’s hair so she can kiss the back of her neck. And then she presses lightly on Zelda’s shoulder blade, an indication to bend over. Zelda does, and Hilda graspes the edge of the counter as she enters Zelda. She starts with two fingers, slow. Zelda hisses in pleasure, and Hilda moans, her eyes closed. But then she opens them and stares at Zelda in the mirror. She says, 

“I’ve made love to you more times than I can count, and this is the wettest I’ve ever felt you. Your thighs are sticky with it, in fact. Did it really arouse you that much to fight with me all day and then have your way with me over a sink?”

“Yes,” Zelda pants, bucking her hips back, trying to get Hilda to fuck her faster or harder or with more fingers or perhaps all of the above. But Hilda continues her gentle, measured strokes—in, quarter turn counterclockwise, out, quarter turn back clockwise. Zelda is already halfway to orgasm, clenching against Hilda’s fingers, chasing after it.

“I really don’t know what delusion I was under to think we wouldn’t end up doing this,” she says, tracing her other hand against Zelda’s spine and then over to her side, up to skim the side of her breast and then all the way back down to her hip, which she then grabs forcefully and at the same moment she pounds into her with all her strength. Zelda cries out, and Hilda thrusts twice more and then goes back to her previous method, slow and soft and calculated. 

She slips her other hand between Zelda’s body and the counter and into her underwear at the front now, just holds it there against her pubic bone. She says,

“I don’t know what delusion I was under to think I didn’t want exactly this to happen.” She presses in on Zelda’s clit, a firm steady pressure, and Zelda grinds her hips into it. The slow measured strokes continue—in, turn, out.

“I don’t know what delusion I was under to think I’d ever enjoy anyone the way I enjoy you,” She says. 

Hilda takes her fast now, pistoning into her and rubbing at her clit side to side very quickly, and Zelda is panting and groaning and then coming. Hilda stops thrusting, but her fingers remain inside her, and she’s gently tracing a wide circle around Zelda’s clit without touching it directly. And when Zelda has sufficiently calmed, Hilda removes herself and smooths Zelda’s skirt back down her legs but is still standing behind her, staring at her in the mirror. 

“I highly doubt there’s a lot to be gained from interrogating anybody in Las Cruces. But if we’re going to try it, we probably ought to get a move on,” Hilda says.

Zelda straightens her spine, glares, says,

“You’re a real piece of work, you know.”

“Custom crafted and hand forged by the very best,” Hilda says pointedly.


	6. Chapter 6

Las Cruces has proved as much of a bust as Hilda had predicted. But there’s a lead to follow. The gal the Phoenix gal had alluded to had been in Las Cruces for a time before she’d retired to a houseboat at Elephant Butte.

It’s dusk and Hilda and Zelda are pounding the pavement, or wooden dock along the reservoir as it were. Slip after slip, they amble along, shambling and shaky on the wonky, warped slats and clutching at each other’s arms for stability as they traverse the buoyed walkways.

And there’s the number hand-painted on a tin mailbox. The spindly, mossy thing across from it fits the description.

Hilda and Zelda look at each other.

Zelda says,

“I don’t want to hear ‘I told you so.’”

Hilda clenches her teeth at that. But she’s patient.

They knock. They wait. They listen. There's no movement to be discerned. It’s an empty houseboat. But it’s Friday night, so an empty house is not so unusual.

xxx

The nearest bar is done up in a pirate theme—all miniature reproductions of mermaid mastheads and oversized antique flintlocks lining the walls.

Hilda and Zelda are sitting thigh to thigh in an oak booth. They don’t speak to each other. They don’t even look at each other. Whiskeys are in front of them, untouched.

And in no time at all, a woman slides in across from them.

“I heard you were asking around about me.”

Her voice is deep and scratchy with overuse and cigarettes and alcohol, but she’s approximately their same age. And she’s tarty—leather pedal pushers, a leopard-print off-the-shoulder-blouse, lipstick too red, eye makeup too smoky.

“We might’ve been,” Zelda says at the same moment Hilda says,

“Depends on who you are.”

The woman’s eyes flit toward each woman in turn. And then she reaches across the table, takes Zelda’s drink, downs it. She says to Hilda,

“And who might I be?”

Hilda knocks back her own drink then,

“You might be anyone. That’s why we’re interested in double checking.”

The woman laughs and then slides out of the booth. She gestures to the bartender in some kind of baseball coach code and then sashays to the jukebox. She turns her head, makes eye contact with Hilda and then pointedly also with Zelda. And then she snaps her fingers.

And suddenly the bar’s atmosphere changes.

Not a big shift—not from pirate to circus clown or anything like that. But a subtle change from generally dimly lit and shadowy to atmospherically chiaroscuro. A subtle change from regular working class tired and winding down and complaining about their wives to romantically sweaty and glistening working class languidly relaxing and off-handedly unionizing. Grainy utilitarian black and white to artistically blurred-edged sepia.

And the jukebox is playing “You Call Everybody Darlin.”

The woman shimmies and sways on the dance floor. She’s got her eyes closed for now as she continues to shimmy and sway, apparently in some kind of bubble unto herself, but when she pops her eyes open, she’s looking straight at Hilda, beckoning.

And Hilda goes. She joins the woman in the changed, charged air. And they dance together.

“‘You don’t mean what you’re sayin’; it’s just a game you’re playin’, but you’ll find someone else can play the game as well as you.’” 

That’s the jukebox singing, or maybe it’s Hilda saying what she wants to say through the jukebox.

Regardless, Hilda’s body is pressed against this other woman’s body, and they’re undulating together rhythmically.

The woman says into Hilda's ear,

“I can tell another empath a mile away. Just go ahead and ask what you want to ask.”

Hilda can feel the tendrils of this woman’s magic lapping at her brain, like a fungus, spores seeping into tiny holes and then replicating and becoming full-fledged and fully devastating mold. She wishes she’d drunk a little more to make her a little more bold. But as it stands she’s as bold as she’s able. She rolls her shoulders back, says,

“Did you birth a child sired by Gerald Spellman?”

The woman laughs, looks at Hilda, looks over Hilda’s shoulder toward Zelda, looks back into Hilda’s eye says,

“You haven’t seen the kid.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement with a side-order of smirk.

“No,” Hilda says. “But that means you know of the existence of a kid.”

“I know a lot of things,” the woman says. “What I don’t know is what you’re willing to trade for access to my myriad varied knowledge.” 

Hilda’s glad she hasn’t drunk more. That way she can focus more easily on probing this woman’s mind. But there’s a wall up—an iron gate that can be squeezed through or scaled if she plays her cards right.

But before Hilda can strategize effectively, Zelda’s there behind her, tapping at the top of her shoulder to cut in.

Zelda’s face is angry, yes, but otherwise inscrutable. The woman takes them both in, says,

“Satan below! I knew the Spellmans would be trouble.”

“Oh much more trouble than you could’ve dreamed,” Zelda says as she rears back and decks the woman full in the face.

The jukebox is playing “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now” as the woman falls back onto a table and dazedly swipes at her bloodied mouth. She springs back up as fast as she’d gone down, jabs at Zelda’s jaw.

Zelda dodges and lands a punch at the woman’s solar plexus.

“Holy shit, Zelds!” Hilda says, but even as she’s breathing this out, the woman is countering, lodging a hook into Zelda’s kidney. Zelda doubles over. 

Hilda has the urge to pitch forward and grab the woman’s hair, but before she can do so, there’s a hand at her shoulder, whipping her around.

Hilda finds herself with a foreign fist in her teeth, and suddenly she’s blindly grappling. Her own fist connects with flesh. Her fingernails are in flesh. There’s a hand in her hair, pulling her down, and she’s bucking and kicking. She feels teeth at her jawline, and she brings a hammerfist down.

There are sounds of glass breaking, grunting. She feels sweat and blood trickling down her brow.

And then. Suddenly. Those woman’s tendrils in her brain whispering,

“You’ve got to get out of here.”

Hilda, physically damaged and frantic, gropes around for a Zelda shape, finds the asshole she’s looking for, latches on, hustles out.


	7. Chapter 7

Hilda hasn’t sustained as much damage and so is just toughing it out with a thick layer of petroleum jelly slathered on her various abrasions, but Zelda’s got an ancient bag of frozen peas pilfered from a filling station on the outskirts of town’s freezer draped over her face as she’s sprawled herself out as much as she is able in the passenger seat, strategic limbs in strategic places to minimize pain.

Hilda’s driving south toward El Paso.

“Get us to El Paso,” Zelda’s half-dead form deposited unceremoniously into the Studebaker’s passenger seat had somehow managed to growl.

“Really?” Hilda had said, pulling on the lever to shift the bench seat forward so that she could comfortably depress the clutch. “El Paso’s the worst. I hate that shit hole.”

“Exactly. They’ll all be expecting us to get gone to Albuquerque or Tucson. No one fucks off to El Paso. People exclusively fuck off from El Paso.”

“You’ve got a point,” Hilda had said. “But who is the ‘they’ who might be expecting anything?”

“You want to stick around and find out?” Zelda had said.

Hilda had known that was bait and hadn’t answered, had said instead,

“You’re hurt. You want me to put together a healing spell?”

The bag of peas had not moved on Zelda’s face, but Hilda had felt the eye roll anyway. Zelda had said,

“Number one, this is the desert. You wouldn’t be able to gather the ingredients. Number two, there’s no time for that.”

Hilda had considered, said,

“Sure, but there’s bound to be a dead coyote on the shoulder sooner rather than later. I could at least use a tail to slap something together to trick you into feeling better.”

The air had whipped through the open car. There had been just the night sounds of far off yips of live coyotes and whooshing wind and tires on asphalt. Zelda had said finally,

“No fucking thanks. I took a couple aspirin. I’d rather rely on mortal medicine than risk rabies.”

Hilda had scoffed. Hilda was impeccable at potions, even slapdash ones. This hadn’t been about quality of charm constituents so much as Zelda’s narcissism and masochism. But Hilda had chosen to let it lie.

So now twenty minutes later, Hilda’s driving south toward El Paso, and Zelda’s languid and half asleep and probably concussed. 

Hilda figures this is her best chance for honesty. She says,

“So, Zelds, what the fuck was all that? I was close. I could’ve—”

Zelda tosses the half-thawed bag of peas into Hilda’s lap. Zelda says,

“Yeah you could’ve. You could’ve let that hussy fuck you under the impression that she had some information to give you in exchange for the use of your cunt.”

Hilda laughs, says,

“You’re the one dragging me around to all these places. And you’re the one most interested in my—”

“I won’t deny either of those accusations,” Zelda says. “But you could’ve anticipated all that. I thought I could count on you to be a little more circumspect about other matters.”

“Satan alive. Do you talk in riddles just for the fun of it or to piss me off specifically?”

“I don’t talk in riddles at all, actually, if you’d take the time to understand me. As much as you want it to be, this isn’t a competition,” Zelda says.

“You’re not doing a great job of convincing me of that,” Hilda says.

Zelda lights a cigarette, straightens her posture, says,

“Look, babe. Look at the facts and look at the implications. It was dangerous there. Too many people knew who we were and what we were up to. But I knew you’d trust that broad’s empathy bullshit over anything I might say. I also knew you wouldn’t leave if there wasn’t some dramatic scene forcing you out. Needs must, babe.”

Hilda opens her mouth to comment on facts and implications and dramatic scenes, but Zelda continues:

“I know. I know I’ve let you down. I know you think you know me and my allegiances and my proclivities. I know you’ve got only yourself and your perceptions to rely on. And you and your perception of me are equally reticent to believe I could ever have your best interest at heart. I know you can know things I don’t and can’t. But also know this: I’m privy to things you aren’t because of proximity and eavesdropping.”

Hilda looks over at Zelda, contemplates. Hilda says carefully,

“That woman also told me to get out of there.”

Zelda presses two fingers to her right temple, says,

“I’m not saying I’m the only one with your best interest at heart. I’m just saying I’m the first and last and always.”

The road is dark in front of them. Blacktop and black sky and nothing. They could very well be driving into oblivion.

“Zelds?” Hilda says.

“Yeah?” Zelda says.

“Excuse me but I think you’re full of shit.”

Zelda laughs, says,

“I’d’ve put money on your having said that.”

Zelda tosses her cigarette butt out the window, and the thing skids along the blacktop behind them, sparking and then extinguishing.

“I’m the same always. Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing. I’m a sure bet for you,” Hilda says. “I get it, but I also don’t. I’m clever but not particularly smart. I’m bright but not particularly aware. I’m empathic but not particularly incisive. I’m strategic but not particularly manipulative. I don’t know what you think you can gain from an alliance with me,” Hilda says.

Zelda’s fingers are now grasping Hilda’s forearm. Zelda says,

“You know good and well that I believe in bullying in order to humble weirdos, but I must admit I think you were bullied a little too much. You weren’t so much a weirdo as someone we all wanted to fuck and pretended not to. Because I spread a lot of awful rumors about you to discourage people from pursuing you.”

Hilda reaches across the bench seat and grabs a cigarette from Zelda’s stash, places it between her lips, lights it with a match from the book from the bar they’d recently vacated.

Hilda takes a drag, and Zelda’s fingers tighten around Hilda’s wrist.


	8. Chapter 8

Hilda’s sitting on the edge of the bed in the cheap motor lodge in El Paso in her pink cotton nightdress. Zelda’s already lying down—probably already asleep—on the other side of the bed, sprawled inelegantly after having tossed everything but the top sheet to the floor—pillows, comforter and all.

Hilda had taken a swim in the grimy pool and then showered and brushed her teeth and is now smoking a cigarette and staring at the watercolor of a bison herd on the far wall. 

It’s an ugly painting.

Hilda stands and paces. It’s a bland, neutral space that could be anywhere and anything—worn carpet and generic desk, the same queen bed that’s in every room of every motel. 

Hilda looks at another watercolor of maybe the same or maybe a different herd of bison on the opposite wall. It's an ugly painting and just as ugly as the other but different enough to add interest. 

There’s a certain logic here. A certain logic connecting drab paintings and drab furnishings to the drab itinerant people who inevitably inhabit this drab space. 

Familiar and expected and regular. Yet not that at all.

The decor matches the couch. That’s the way it should be. The whole room an entity unto itself. Modern painting is supposed to be the panacea for all the ills of modern life, yet everyone still buys the painting that matches the couch. The art can be forgiven because of this. But what about the couch? Hilda shakes it all off.

It’s been a long day. 

Hilda has endured this long day. 

There’d been a time in Hilda’s life that fucking Zelda had been a grounding experience that had left her refreshed and ready to face the next day’s challenges. But now currently she knows good and well that that time has passed and that she shouldn’t have allowed their most recent encounter in that Las Cruces diner washroom. That encounter has only muddled things and unduly colored their interactions with both each other and other people they might have been able to extract information from. 

Surely Zelda wouldn’t have started that brawl if her possessiveness hadn’t been reactivated so soon before. 

Surely Hilda would’ve been able to pick up more clues and think more clearly if her treasonous body weren’t every moment thrumming with reignited want. 

Surely they might have been able to talk to each other.

But then again, had they ever been able to talk to each other? Or had they always merely talked at or around each other? 

Hilda doesn’t want to get into the messy business of memories. 

Now Hilda stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray perched on top of the chest of drawers and looks at Zelda, who is taking up most of the bed and is lightly snoring. 

Zelda is so beautiful, even like this, even bruised and sunburned and haphazard and unconscious.

Hilda knows she won’t be able to sleep. She knows as soon as her body starts to relax it will pass its restlessness baton to her anxious brain, which will pick apart and analyze every single thing that’s happened over the past few days and probably relate plenty of previous occurrences as reference material. 

But Hilda lies down and turns out the light regardless. She’s staring unseeingly at the ceiling, breathing deeply and willing herself to clear her mind. 

And Zelda’s arm is suddenly flopped onto Hilda’s torso. Zelda’s always been a busy sleeper, so Hilda ignores it. 

Hilda ignores it until Zelda says,

“Would you have let that woman fuck you?”

Hilda blinks a few times. 

Hilda’s eyes have adjusted to the darkness and are focused on the popcorn ceiling, and she isn’t sure she’s heard what she’s heard. She turns slightly, just enough to register Zelda’s face—the sleepy honesty so clearly there in her eyes.

“Maybe,” Hilda says noncommittally, turning the question over and examining its angles.

“Maybe?” Zelda says, fingers flexing and gripping Hilda’s obliques. Hilda looks again into Zelda’s eyes in the dimness, and Hilda sees they’re talking around each other, as per usual. Hilda says,

“I’m not as convinced as you are that that was her goal.”

Zelda barks one scoffing laugh, says,

“We must’ve been observing different women.”

“That’s the nature of observation, isn’t it?” Hilda says and continues, “Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable because people see what they expect or want to see.”

Zelda props herself up on an elbow. Hilda can more clearly see Zelda’s avid eyes because of the neon outside filtering in. She takes in the planes of Zelda’s face, the sharpness inherent to her bone structure and the sharpness in her personality and attitude.

Zelda continues staring at Hilda, says,

“Are you implying that I expect and want to see some washed-up old slag spinning whatever lies might grant her access to your kitty?”

Hilda shuts her eyes, sighs, says,

“Oh just go to sleep, Zelds.”

Zelda huffs—and the exhalation is very close to Hilda’s ear and raises goosebumps on Hilda’s skin—says,

“I didn’t seek you out and recruit you to help me figure all this shit out just for you to whore yourself out to whatever person might pretend to know something. Holy shit, Hilda, I thought you might have some better ideas than I did. You’ve always been clever, more clever than me by half. So I’d thought maybe you could get down to the nitty gritty of it all.”

There is a long pause. Zelda’s mouth is very close to Hilda’s ear, and her breathing is hard and fast. 

“And here I’d been under the impression I was the soft touch,” Hilda whispers finally.

There is a puff of air at Hilda’s ear—a scoff or a laugh. Hilda’s not sure if it’s amusement or scorn.

But then, Zelda’s hand at Hilda’s stomach travels down to hipbone and pushes. 

Zelda has twisted and turned her body, is fully on top of Hilda now. Zelda has slotted her thigh between Hilda’s legs. Their limbs are tangled together, and their eyes are staring into each other’s eyes.

“‘Soft touch.’ That’s quite a euphemism,” Zelda says.

They’re nose to nose, chest to chest. 

“You’ve always personally hated my predilection for euphemism and yet encouraged it in other contexts. Excuse me for having thought—” Hilda tries to say before she’s cut off by:

“Oh shut up you ninny,” Zelda says as she tangles her fingers in Hilda’s hair and grinds her hips down. “This is not about any of that, and you very well know it.”

And Zelda’s mouth is against Hilda’s—consuming, subsuming, transversing, devouring.

They kiss. It’s a passionate, insane kiss. Tongue and muscle. Zelda is on top of Hilda and heaving with want.

And suddenly a furious rapping at the door.

Hilda and Zelda freeze in a tableau of almost. They stare at each other, and Hilda presses her palm against Zelda’s chest, says toward the door,

“Who is it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Modern painting is supposed to be the panacea for all the ills of modern life, yet everyone still buys the painting that matches the couch.“ is stolen wholesale from Bette Midler.


End file.
